


planting seeds (in a garden you get to see)

by CycloneRachel



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Chance Meetings, Gen, Mystery Character(s), Pre-Canon, Short One Shot, but also post-canon? it's complicated
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-25
Updated: 2020-11-25
Packaged: 2021-03-10 02:49:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,116
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27706520
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CycloneRachel/pseuds/CycloneRachel
Summary: based on the prompt "old lady Kara meeting young Brainy, encouraging him and telling him she thinks he's going to be a great hero"
Comments: 12
Kudos: 23





	planting seeds (in a garden you get to see)

The old woman’s eyes lit up when she saw him.

This, to Querl, was strange- enough to make him stop in his proverbial tracks, and turn to focus on her as she smiled at him.

(Which was even stranger. On Colu, both before he received his inhibitors and afterward, nobody smiled at him, and though both Nura and Mon-El definitely had while he was in prison, he suspected there had been something behind it. Some intention that they wanted something from him, and would only continue to be kind to him once he complied with their request.)

(He knew they had reassured him that that wasn’t the case, but then again they had also told him they wanted to be his friend, and to give him a choice that would take him off of the dark path he’d been going down. They’d told him they wanted him to get the chance to use his skills for good, and give his family name a better reputation. But what sense was there in that, when somewhere in the universe another Brainiac was only enforcing their family image, and when he couldn’t even convince her not to bottle planets? What was the point of trying to represent the Brainiac family in a better light when his inhibitors marked him as a pale shade of that very clan?

Even trying was better than prison, though (and there was only so much he could stand of being inhibited twice over), so he was let out on probation, and now he had finally arrived on Earth. Specifically, what he’d been informed was New National City, what remained of the former home of Supergirl.

Supergirl- Kara Zor-El, for some time assumed to be the last daughter of Krypton, who had chosen the human name Kara Danvers.

Those were names he had certainly heard a lot of, recently.

He’d known the name of the superhero the longest, given the shared history that his own family had with the House of El, and specifically the time that Supergirl had clashed with his ancestor Indigo. His mother cursed Supergirl’s name, her whole family line, and though the heroine had been missing for centuries, the grudge against her and Superman remained.

But it was only when he and Mon-El had started talking, that he heard Kara’s human name for the first time. According to the Daxamite, he had ended up in the thirty-first century after his pod was drawn through a time portal, but originally he had been in the twenty-first century, sleeping for decades in the Well of Stars after Daxam’s destruction until he landed on Earth, and was found by Supergirl.

She and her friends took him in, and taught him about Earth’s culture- and although, as Mon-El confessed, he hadn’t initially been so receptive to the idea of himself as a hero, Kara had inspired him, and motivated him to be better. She was the one who pointed out his flaws, but also strengthened him, and though their relationship wasn’t perfect, it had been good, and had affected him in ways that he could have never anticipated before leaving home. With Kara’s help, he had stood up to his parents, and together they defeated the Daxamite forces that threatened to take over the Earth.

Unfortunately, to defeat them- by seeding Earth’s atmosphere with lead- was to exile himself from Earth as well, and so Mon-El left in the same pod he’d occupied before, with no idea as to where he was going. Apparently, he’d gotten a temporary cure for his lead poisoning from Alexis Luthor, but didn’t have a permanent solution. But that didn’t matter- as once he had gotten situated in this century, he decided he would uphold Supergirl’s legacy, and create a team that had the potential to do the same.

And that was where Querl came in- after that were recent memories. Being released from prison, walking freely with the Daxamite and Naltorian ahead of him. One of them asking him if he needed to go back to Colu for any reason, to collect any remaining belongings- the Legion had made their headquarters on Earth, and so said planet would become his new home.

(Querl said no)

The two of them letting him get accustomed to Earth, while they and a few others searched for new recruits. People who, hopefully, would not be just like him- as nobody deserved the fate he’d received.

 _They don’t want to be around you_ , a vicious part of him hissed. _You’re just their little Brainiac charity case._

He wasn’t sure if he would ever stop considering that.

As if she could read his mind, while Querl tried to keep his eyes trained on the ground, the old woman spoke.

“It’s you.” She said, still smiling.

“How do you know me?” he asked. There were too many options, and all but one of them were favorable- and the only one that could have been positive was extremely unlikely, as the newly-formed Legion wouldn’t have advertised that they were bringing the Brainiac heir onto their team.

(it would have been bad for business)

“Who are you?” he asked again, after the woman remained silent, and she put a finger to her lips.

“I can’t tell you that.” She answered. She wore a faded cloak, that Querl couldn’t tell the color of, and when she spoke it was with an authoritative tone despite her apparent age. He couldn’t see her hair or most of her face, as they were obscured by the hood of her cloak, but even though he didn’t know her, something about her made him feel safe. “But I can say this- do not be afraid. Despite what you may think, I have a feeling you’re going to be a great hero.”

“Do you know the future?” Querl wondered. There weren’t many alien species with that kind of power, and though he didn’t know her name, he’d probably be able to find it out by searching for those aliens were that the case.

(because he was curious- for no other reason)

“I suppose this is the future, for me.” She said. “Be good, Querl Dox. I believe in you.”

That doesn’t mean much, since you still haven’t said your name, he thought. But receiving advice from random strangers wasn’t something that regularly happened to him, and it wasn’t something he could really explain. So he kept the memory, hearing the woman’s voice whenever he felt as though being a part of the Legion was pointless, when someone doubted his intentions. Years went by, with that one interaction fueling him.

And eventually, he met Supergirl in person, and realized whose voice and advice he had remembered.


End file.
